Is Lance a LOT cleaner than most of us think?

[Indurain]

Lance will do what it takes to win this tour. As if he does he can expect a movie to be made about him, books, etc. cancer survivor wins tour 7 times, retires and wins another. Greatest of all time. Merckx did something similar with a late tour win too.

What I don't get is how Lance couldn't timetrial to save himself in the Tour Suisse and then comes here and blows most of them away?? You don't improve that much in 1mth considering he was already starting to approach peak.

Before cancer he couldn't climb or timetrial. Before this tour he wasn't much better. Whatever he's on, I want some of it.

 

[sars1981]

He is not cleaner .. but I have never thought EPO was his secret weapon. My opinion is he learned a lot about pharmacology during his cancer treatment and when he got better he competed doped out of his brains - feeling safe in the knowledge that if he got caught he could just blame it on cancer therapy. When he didn't get caught, and did so well, he just repeated the program every year.

 

[Mach Schnell]

Der Kaiser must be going to bed with a smile on his face these days

 

[pedaling squares]

Of course he's cleaner. He's been getting his ar$e licked clean by the masses for years now.

 

[Benotti69]

Of course he's cleaner. He's been getting his ar$e licked clean by the masses for years now.

i believe a forum member gets to Polish his last ball after every race

 

[benlondon]

EPO transforms riders...

benlondon, most hard core cycling fans believe that Lance doped/dopes.

But the point of my OP is that the "EPO Transformed Lance" myth is crumbling.

If even one of Lance's TdF wins was accomplished witout EPO - the myth is dead. Unless the transformational qualities of EPO last more than a year(s).

In the 90s and early 2000s huge doses of EPO turned donkeys into champions. Indurain went from anonymity to 5x winner, Riis went from domestique to winner, Armstrong went from promising one day rider to phenomenal time trialist & climber & 7 time champion.
These days the effects of doping are more subtle. EPO has to be taken in micro-doses if at all alongside transfusions, HGH, steroids & probably a load of stuff that's still secret. That means even a comprehensive doping programme like the one Armstrong follows cannot guarantee victory.
But doping still transformed Armstrong from the clean(ish) rider who could only watch as Indurain put six minutes into him in the 94 Tour time trial [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmR9k8UAohs[/URL] , to someone who dominated 7 Tours.

 

[Hawkwood]

In the 90s and early 2000s huge doses of EPO turned donkeys into champions. Indurain went from anonymity to 5x winner, Riis went from domestique to winner, Armstrong went from promising one day rider to phenomenal time trialist & climber & 7 time champion...

Regarding Indurain it wasn't quite like that. He won the Tour de L'Avenir in 1986, Paris Nice and the Criterium National in 1989, and Paris Nice again in 1990 before going on to work for Delgado at the Tour. His early Tour record was:

1985 - WD
1986 - WD
1987 - 97th
1988 - 47th
1989 - 17th
1990 - 10th

After the Paris Nice wins I don't think it came as too much of a surprise when he won the Tour.

 

[Benotti69]

Regarding Indurain it wasn't quite like that. He won the Tour de L'Avenir in 1986, Paris Nice and the Criterium National in 1989, and Paris Nice again in 1990 before going on to work for Delgado at the Tour. His early Tour record was:

1985 - WD
1986 - WD
1987 - 97th
1988 - 47th
1989 - 17th
1990 - 10th

After the Paris Nice wins I don't think it came as too much of a surprise when he won the Tour.

San Kelly won Paris Nice how many times in a row and a criterium international i think, but was never gonna win the TdF....

 

[Hawkwood]

San Kelly won Paris Nice how many times in a row and a criterium international i think, but was never gonna win the TdF....

Oddly for a couple of Tour he was seen as being a contender, and his Tour results (from wikipedia) show that he wasn't too far away:

1978 - 34th
1979 - 38th
1980 - 29th
1981 - 48th
1982 - 15th
1983 - 7th
1984 - 5th
1985 - 4th

and this was as good as it got. Indurain was a better climber and timetrialer so it wasn't a big surprise that he made the top step; whether he was clean is a completely different matter! Kelly was one of the first green jersey winners to reinvent themselves as serious contenders for tour victories, Jalabert was another.

 

[redtreviso]

Oddly for a couple of Tour he was seen as being a contender, and his Tour results (from wikipedia) show that he wasn't too far away:

1978 - 34th
1979 - 38th
1980 - 29th
1981 - 48th
1982 - 15th
1983 - 7th
1984 - 5th
1985 - 4th

and this was as good as it got. Indurain was a better climber and timetrialer so it wasn't a big surprise that he made the top step; whether he was clean is a completely different matter! Kelly was one of the first green jersey winners to reinvent themselves as serious contenders for tour victories, Jalabert was another.

At least Indurain had some respect for the Tour and cycling..Sure he did his thing in the time trials, but he just marked his rivals in the mountains when he could have sprinted off like Riis and Armstrong... He could have won easily in 1990.

 

[Hawkwood]

At least Indurain had some respect for the Tour and cycling..Sure he did his thing in the time trials, but he just marked his rivals in the mountains when he could have sprinted off like Riis and Armstrong... He could have won easily in 1990.

Indurain was a clever rider who gave stages away in exchange for support when things got difficult. He was a class act. One of my all-time favourite stages was when Indurain was chasing down Urgumov (spelling) on a high speed long descent. Virenque could just about hold Indurain's wheel, while Pantani even when lying on the saddle, bum over back wheel couldn't. It was incredible seeing Indurain sprinting out of the saddle out of bends, and the motorbike struggling to keep up!

 

[buckwheat]

Lance will do what it takes to win this tour. As if he does he can expect a movie to be made about him, books, etc. cancer survivor wins tour 7 times, retires and wins another. Greatest of all time. Merckx did something similar with a late tour win too.

What I don't get is how Lance couldn't timetrial to save himself in the Tour Suisse and then comes here and blows most of them away?? You don't improve that much in 1mth considering he was already starting to approach peak.

Before cancer he couldn't climb or timetrial. Before this tour he wasn't much better. Whatever he's on, I want some of it.

Which is the whole doping problem in a nutshell.

Thanks!

 

[buckwheat]

In the 90s and early 2000s huge doses of EPO turned donkeys into champions. Indurain went from anonymity to 5x winner, Riis went from domestique to winner, Armstrong went from promising one day rider to phenomenal time trialist & climber & 7 time champion.
These days the effects of doping are more subtle. EPO has to be taken in micro-doses if at all alongside transfusions, HGH, steroids & probably a load of stuff that's still secret. That means even a comprehensive doping programme like the one Armstrong follows cannot guarantee victory.
But doping still transformed Armstrong from the clean rider who could only watch as Indurain put six minutes into him in the 94 Tour time trial [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmR9k8UAohs[/URL] , to someone who dominated 7 Tours.

Armstrong's cleanliness for his whole adult, and maybe teen (17), life is in serious doubt.

You think he was clean after he became associated with Comical?

 

[buckwheat]

He is not cleaner .. but I have never thought EPO was his secret weapon. My opinion is he learned a lot about pharmacology during his cancer treatment and when he got better he competed doped out of his brains - feeling safe in the knowledge that if he got caught he could just blame it on cancer therapy. When he didn't get caught, and did so well, he just repeated the program every year.

The great lesson of his cancer treatment, (being treated at IU rather than MD Anderson) is that more is not necessarily better. Timing, dosage, and measured recovery are the lessons which were learned with cancer and implemented by Ferrari.